to the success of your views. It is
not now as the Minister of the King, that I have the honor to speak,
but as a man whom the residence of a year in this place has furnished
with local knowledge, which you cannot have acquired. If, however, you
overcome this difficulty, if you commence a negotiation with the
Russian Minister, and will do me the honor to make me acquainted with
it, you need not doubt that I shall strive most cheerfully to second
you in everything, which shall concern the common interest. Be
persuaded, moreover, that on the occasions when I shall deem it my
duty to remain inactive, it will be because I am well satisfied, that
any advance on my part would be injurious to one, without any
advantage to the other.

I can add nothing to the sincerity of my wishes for the success of
your mission, or to the distinguished sentiments with which I have the
honor to be, &c.

THE MARQUIS DE VERAC.

_P. S._ I ought to inform you, that the Count Panin and the Count
d'Ostermann do not understand English; this will render your
communications with these Ministers difficult.

* * * * *

TO THE MARQUIS DE VERAC.

St Petersburg, September 4th, 1781.

Sir,

I have received the letter, which your Excellency did me the honor to
write to me yesterday, in answer to mine of the day before,
communicating to you the general object of my mission.

It is impossible for me to express the obligations I feel myself under
to your Excellency, for letting yourself so readily, and with so much
frankness, into the state of affairs at this Court, so far as I could
have any concern in them, and for your confidential communication
respecting the proposition for the admission of the American Minister
into the proposed Congress; a proposition founded in eternal justice,
and which cannot fail to reflect immortal glory upon the august
mediators. Although I had before been acquainted with this, and also
that the Court of London had rejected the mediation on that very
account, yet I deemed it so very productive an event, and of so much
importance to the interests of my country, that I had proposed, after
being honored with your answer to my first, to write to your
Excellency upon that subject, and also to request your sentiments and
opinions upon the actual state of things at this Court, but your
goo